Chicago narrowly passes $17.3 billion budget for 2025

CHICAGO (CN) — The Chicago City Council passed Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed 2025 budget in a 27-23 vote on Monday evening, following an hourslong city council meeting and weeks of political drama.

The finalized $17.3 billion budget avoids raising property taxes, a major source of contention in City Hall. Johnson pledged on the campaign trail not to raise property taxes, but he proposed a $300 million hike going into 2025 to address a $1 billion city budget deficit.

City councilors unanimously rejected that tax increase last month.

Johnson’s administration scrapped a reduced, $68.5 million property tax increase proposal over the weekend.

The budget that city councilors approved Monday draws $12.6 billion from local funds and $4.7 from grants, according to the city budget office. It relies on what the city claims is a nearly $571 million surplus in tax increment financing — with the Chicago Sun Times reporting that it also calls for increases to other local taxes. These include raising the city’s checkout bag tax from seven to 10 cents to generate $5 million, and increasing the personal property lease tax rate from 9% to 11% for another $128 million.

The budget also cuts jobs across city government, including 10 positions with the mayor’s office.

In a press conference Monday night, Johnson said the budget avoided public service cuts and maintained investment in youth employment and affordable housing.

“I am deeply grateful to the members of the city council who contributed their hard work, ideas and passion to this process,” the mayor told reporters.

The work that went into passing the budget nevertheless highlights the increasingly embattled position Johnson’s office finds itself in. Besides predictable opposition from the city council’s conservative members, Johnson has run afoul of his progressive support in the city over budget issues, ethics scandals in his office, his handling of newly-arrived immigrants in the city and fights over the composition of the public school board, currently in the process of transitioning from a Mayor-appointed to an elected body.

Alderpeople Andre Vasquez and Maria Hadden, co-chairs of the city’s progressive caucus, both excoriated Johnson during Friday’s meeting over their dissatisfaction with the budget and the process that led to its passage.

“Mr. Mayor, we have heard a lot about your progressive values throughout this process and I don’t doubt them. But how we do things is just as important as what we do,” Hadden said. “And the way you’ve led this process has left the city council fractured, Chicagoans less trusting in government, and it’s left our city in an extremely vulnerable position as we enter the next year with the promise of attacks from a new presidential administration.”

Vasquez had similar comments.

“The lack of leadership and collaboration from this administration made a difficult budget even harder,” Vasquez said. “From introducing the budget two weeks late … to the last-minute changes without proper time for us to even consider the changes before calling for a vote. This budget process has left many Chicagoans, including many members of this council, feeling a lack of confidence and a lack of trust in the city’s government.”

Hadden ultimately voted for the budget despite her criticisms, while Vasquez voted against it.

Johnson himself conceded last week that the budget process this year was contentious. Monday’s vote came after Johnson and his allies used a political maneuver last Friday to abruptly a cancel a planned vote on a similar budget proposal. During the scheduled meeting on Friday, Johnson’s ally, Alderman Jason Ervin, successfully motioned for a recess until Monday only moments after the city councilors established a quorum. Fifteen minutes after calling the meeting, Johnson gaveled his podium and left the council floor to jeers from hecklers in the public gallery.

Johnson told reporters after that meeting his office hadn’t managed to secure the votes needed to pass the budget as of Friday.

On Monday, he told press that his administration needs to “continue to work hard and bring people together,” particularly with 2026 budget issues in mind. But he added his entire administration is committed to that goal.

“I promised that I would work hard this weekend. So even as a good labor person myself I’m still working on weekends, even on Sundays,” he said.

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